Fahrenheit
by HollyandHawthorn
Summary: Harry doesn't let people near him, not anymore, because he's seen what trust can do. Dark!Harry
1. Chapter 1

**Fahrenheit - Chapter 1** by HollyandHawthorn.

DISCLAIMER: I most indefinitely do not own anything, except perhaps my car and this laptop.

This story will get pretty rough, Violence, and Smut, of course.

A/N: _People write Slytherin!Harry all the time, mostly basing it off that cutesy handshake that Draco offers in Philosophers Stone, but you know what, I'm not going to write one of those. _

_Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to review, they're like puppies._

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><p>There is nothing more empowering to Harry than the sound of his own breathing in the silence. The rhythm is calming, completely at his mercy.<p>

It makes his skin tingle and his pupils dilate, until the intense green of his irises is little more than a fine ring of colour around the dark pits that seem to swallow him into his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

In, and out.

He can tell a lot about a person by the way that they breathe, what they truly think about a person, how they're going to react to something. His Uncle is the perfect example; his breathing is rough and unbalanced, his throat catches at the air on each exhalation, eliciting a growl that only Harry seems to be capable of hearing.

The growling is more intense when he speaks to Harry, and while he is barely intimidated by the sound, it determines just how far he can push from one day to the next.

Because he loves to push his Uncle to the edge, letting him teeter, and regain his balance all on his own. Balance is important.

Harry never used to be balanced, his breathing was once spontaneous, unmeasured, and the thought of such a thing now makes his chest tighten harshly against his lungs. He doesn't let himself think about those days.

There has only been one time since he first discovered his own balance, that Harry has let himself revel in the loss that assurance. It still rings in his ears like the final high note of some twisted song. The sound of Dudley's rattling wheezes as he inhales the dark smoke swirling around his head, the screaming of Aunt Petunia as her eyes glow a brilliant shade of fierce amber.

The memory is imprinted into his flesh, and his fingertips still ache with the sensation of the burning heat. He loves the heat more than anything else in the world, except perhaps his breathing.

Outside, steam fills the air thick and fast as the other students kiss their relatives goodbye. Harry doesn't look, the concept makes his stomach twist into knots that tear at his insides.

Family is very much a sore spot for him, and he isn't about to let a bunch of emotional mothers outside his window spark any kind of emotion inside himself, because that is very much dangerous territory. He doesn't let himself feel very often.

He turns his attention instead to the golden lettered ticket that rest on his lap, glinting softly in the sunlight seeping through the muddy skylights of the platform. He likes the ticket, the corners slightly frayed from being handled so often over the last few weeks, fingerprints coating it's surface and the scent of that musty hotel room he had stayed in after being returned from Diagon Alley.

He raised a hand to his hair, running his fingers through the mess subconsciously as he studies the ticket for what feels like the thousandth time.

The final whistle blows outside, and the train seems to thunder with the sound of hundreds of footsteps as students board in a rush, hands fly out of windows and mothers say their final tearful goodbyes. Harry measures his breathing.

The train eventually begins to move, the watch on Harry's boney wrist ticking over eleven o'clock, and his mouth twitches ever so slightly. He corrects his slip in composure barely a second later, dropping his face back into the impassive expression he wears almost constantly nowadays.

The door slides open.

"Mind if I sit in here with you?" He looks up at the lanky redheaded boy for a moment before returning to his ticket. "Everywhere else is full."

Harry keeps him waiting a moment too long before nodding curtly and listening to the sigh of relief. This boys breathing is uneven too. This train ride is going to drag out tortuously long.

When he feels that he's finally soaked in every detail of the ticket, he pushes it back into the pocket of his worn jeans and glares up at his trunk above his head. He can feel the other boys eyes on him, but he has absolutely no intention of making him feel any more comfortable. Harry thrives off the discomfort of others.

He stands, fiddles with the buckles of his trunk before popping it open and digging around inside it. His hand finds what he's looking for within moments, and slipping his hand from the unknown, he pulls out _A History of Magic_ and sits himself resolutely back on his chair, crossing his legs beneath him and flipping the book open.

"I'm Ron by the way," comes a quiet voice opposite him. "Ron Weasley."

Harry keeps reading, sighing carefully, one, two, three, before answering the obvious attempt at politeness. Harry, of course, already knew precisely what was going to happen when he uttered his own name into the silence.

"I'm Harry Potter," he said, keeping his eyes on the text in front of him and listening closely to the sharp intake of breath, the awkward five seconds wait, and then the question. This was the only part of the greeting that really seemed to change from person to person, what it was they wanted to know.

"Is it true, then?"

Harry raises his eyes slowly, pressing a finger to his place and narrowing his eyes at the other boy, cocking his head to one side and taking in the wide eyes and the quiver of the bottom lip. He's intimidated. Good.

"The scar," Harry knows it isn't really a question but he asks it anyway, some people after all, do manage to surprise him occasionally. Ron nods, and Harry inwardly sighs. Just like everyone else.

He takes his free hand and pushes back the hair on his forehead.

"Wicked."

"That's one way of putting it," Harry drops his fringe and returns to his book, flicking the page over and concentrating hard on the printed words. He doesn't like the attention, despises it in fact, and having people gawping at his forehead constantly was doing his head in.

His fingers tightened on the edges of the book, his teeth grinding together as he inhaled evenly. This was not the place.

Ron seemed to take the hint, leaving Harry to his business, shuffling uncomfortably in his chair and humming gently to himself.

Looking up from page seventy two half an hour later, Harry found Ron with his forehead pressed to the glass window, his eyes flicking across the landscape and his breath fogging up the glass every few moments.

Harry cracked his knuckles, continuing to stare unabashed at Ron when he twisted to look at him. People don't scare him.

Not anymore.

Ron's eyes are an interesting shade of Periwinkle blue, with tiny flecks of bronze fanning from their centre. They're very trusting, and strangely innocent.

He looks away, it's too strange. Closing his eyes against the harsh sunlight shining through the window and heating his skin, it makes him shiver. He focuses on his breathing, balancing himself carefully until each breath is exact, before opening his eyes and glaring hard at the compartment door.

Outside, a small girl with brown plaits stares at him, her jaw slack and her nose pressed unattractively to the glass. He stares back at her for a moment, what the hell does she think she's doing? And on another note, how long has she been standing there?

He stands carefully, his book falling with a muffled thump, she doesn't move, because she trapped. He walks to the door in two easy strides, slamming the door open, hard, and letting the girl fall in a heap on the floor at his feet.

He drops his face down immediately, mere inches from her gleaming eyes. His lip curls and he whips a hand out to fist the front of her shirt and drag her shoulders from from the floor. It's sure to be uncomfortable, and she gasps against his touch.

"I am not an animal in a cage," he spits, "I am not going to play nice, because I am not. a. nice. person."

His voice is barely a whisper now, but she nods vigorously anyway, before being dropped back onto the floor and scrambling out the door with a frightened squeak.

He slams it closed, before turning back to look at a suddenly very pale Ron staring up at him. His face remains impassive as he picks the book from the floor and examines it's cover for any damage, running his fingers tentatively along the thick spine and dusting invisible lint from it's surface.

Stupid girl.

Exhaling heavily, he drops back into his chair, placing the book on his lap and scrubbing his face with his hands, sliding beneath the frames of his glasses until they sit precariously on the very tip of his nose, threatening to drop. He stops, pushing them up and looking at Ron.

"What?" He snaps, causing Ron to drop his eyes to his hands and the tips of his ears to shine a magnificent shade of pink.

It takes forty five minutes for Harry to be disturbed from his reading this time, the door opening quietly and the sound of stuttering breaths filling the compartment. He groans and drops his head back to stare at the roof, waiting for whoever has graced his doorway to speak up.

"Are you alright?" Ron's voice breaks the tension, and Harry feels slightly disappointed. He loves the tension, thrives off of it.

"Er - No, uhm, I'm looking for a toad, you haven't seen one by any chance?"

He bites his tongue hard enough to taste blood, it's all he can do to keep himself from opening his mouth, this Ron kid already thinks he's insane. The copper taste fills his mouth, running down the back of his throat and making his eyelids flicker closed. His hands begin to shake, and his heart stutters in his chest.

Oh God, that taste.

It scared people most when Harry bled, and he knew it, because every time it bloomed across his flesh, or filled his mouth, it seemed as though his body unhinged itself. He loved the feeling of losing it, but it wasn't something he could allow so easily.

He swallowed it down, opening his eyes and clenching his hands into tight fists. Breathe.

In, and out.

The door clicks shut, and the compartment goes back to the same intense silence that he prefers. Bloody boys and their toads.

He turns his head to look at the seat next to him, where Hedwig sits, head tucked below a snowy wing, though Harry doubted she would be asleep, she's definitely far smarter than that.

He doesn't know how he feels about her, but something stirs inside him, because she truly is the only beautiful thing he's seen of the world in the eleven years he's been here. She more beautiful than the bruises that flourished across his neck on his ninth birthday, more beautiful than the feeling of ice running along his back. She was everything, and he promised himself that nothing would ever dare to hurt her. Ever.

He manages thirty minutes this time around, practically slamming his book down at the sound of the door opening, turning his head a glaring fiercely at a bushy haired girl who seems to be looking down her nose at the pair of them. Harry takes her in for a moment, her hands clasped carefully to the frame of the door, her face an image of nonchalance and a single fine eyebrow quirked in expectation.

There's something very strange about her, and Harry can't quite put a finger on it. He holds onto his book, pressing it to his chest and inhaling.

"Have either of you seen a toad?" she asks briskly, glancing between Ron and himself. "A boy named Neville has lost one."

"No, sorry." Ron bristles, huffing to himself. Harry turns to look at him, the discomfort is different here. He still completely not himself, but it doesn't have the same quiver of fear when he speaks to Harry. It's an odd change of tone. "He's already asked us, actually."

"Oh, okay then..." she turns her attention to Harry, scrutinising him with narrowed eyes. "You're Harry Potter, aren't you."

It's more of a statement than a question, and Harry can see Ron stiffen out of the corner of his eye. Stupid boy. "Yes, I am," he considers pulling back his fringe, as is the standard with these people, but she doesn't need to seem the confirmation. "You are..."

"Hermione Granger," she puffs up her chest, and actually manages a smile. She's got a brave heart, that one. "You two ought to get into your robes, I expect we'll be arriving in a while."

Harry wrinkles his nose and turns his attention back to his book, he has no intention of moving anywhere until he finishes this damn chapter. The Goblin Revolution is definitely one of the most intriguing parts of this book, though he's certain the information is incredibly one sided. He taps a finger to his lip in thought, making a mental note to find himself more information when he arrives at school.

He's hoping beyond anything that the Library at Hogwarts has enough books to occupy him, because his fierce desire to read is almost as strong as his desire to push every person around him as far away from him as he can manage, and that includes this redheaded boy opposite him, the stupid girl pressing her nose against the compartment door, and Hermione Granger, who didn't seem to be scared of him at all.

He's a lone ranger, his childhood had taught him that he works better that way, friendship involves too much pain, and as much as Harry loved the spike in people eyes when they fear for their lives, he doesn't want to have to experience the pain of actually becoming close to somebody.

Too many emotions. Not worth it.

The door opens again, and Harry throws the book across the compartment, narrowly missing a shocked looking Ron, and climbs to his face. He's had enough of the constant prying.

He twists to the door, his eyes ablaze and heat radiating from his body, he hates being angry, but sometimes, he just has to draw that line.

"What do you want!" he snaps, scowling hard at the blonde boy framed in the doorway, who appears to have expected a far different reaction upon opening the door.

"You must be Harry Potter," he's attempting to sound unfazed, but the shake in his voice is palpable. Harry can feel the fear rolling off of him, just as he can hear the strange rhythm of his breathing. One long breath, two short, one long, two short.

"Again," he grinds out, attempting to keep his breathing even, "what do you want?"

"Oh, just to introduce myself," he glances down at his fingernails and smirks, "I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

Ron snorts behind him, but Harry doesn't flinch, keeping his eyes level with the boy who seems to have shied away from the eye contact. He's putting on an act, and that annoys Harry beyond anything else. This kid isn't as confident as he's making out, and Harry can see the cracks forming on the surface.

"Think my names funny," he calls over Harry's shoulder, "No need to ask you yours -"

"If you plan on waltzing into this compartment of your own accord, talk to him like you're better than him," he jabs a finger over his shoulder, "and not even work up the courage to look me in the damn eye, _Draco_. Then you can consider yourself removed." Harry takes a step forward, straight into the personal space of the slightly taller boy, "Get. Out."

He looks into Harry's eyes for a split second, steps back into the two heavy boys standing behind him, and stumbles slightly down the hallway without another word. The two boys stare at Harry stupidly, before he cracks his knuckles again and they get the hint. They remind him oddly of Dudley.

"Thanks..."

"Don't mention it." Harry turns his eyes to Ron briefly, breathing deeply before turning to pull his robes from the inside of his trunk.

"What house do you reckon you'll end up in?" The question is harmless, because he has no answer for it.

"I have no idea." He finds his robes and drops them onto the chair as he closes his trunk, he really doesn't want this conversation getting personal, so keeping his eyes to himself is deathly important.

"Fair enough, personally, I hope I get into Gryffindor, my whole family has been in Gryffindor for decades." Harry hears the click of Ron's trunk signalling that he, too, has decided to fish his robes out and change.

The conversation ends there, because Harry really doesn't want to get into a conversation with this boy. He pinches the bridge of his nose and listens to the sound of Ron's unbalanced, husky breathing. Definitely don't want to get into a conversation, he might get attached, and Harry is pretty certain that sound would have him ripping the hairs from his scalp if he had to put up with it endlessly.

The fabric of the robes is scratchy and thick, weighing heavily against his skin and billowing around his ankles as he steps from the train. The air here is crisp and sharp against the back of his throat, and the light breeze ruffles his already stupidly messy hair, teasing him for the rogue mop he's managed to inherit from god knows where.

He hates his hair most of the time, with the exception of the occasions in which Aunt Petunia would have turn about the state of it, that made heat curl lovingly in his chest, and a dark smile spread crookedly across his lips.

The booming voice of Hagrid, the overly friendly giant who had retrieved him from the hotel, rang out over the crowd of black clad students, flashes of brilliantly coloured ties surrounding him. Damn his height, it's a weakness he very much loathes about himself.

He manages to push the students aside, finding his way to the feet of the giant where a number of equally small students are waiting. They look scared. Harry almost lets himself smile, not quite.

The walk to the boats involves the buzz of excitable chatter, two people standing on his toes, to which he shoves them hard away from him without a second glance, and a lot of stargazing. The night is clear, and his breathing feels far easier than the usual labouring thought process it takes for him to keep it balanced. He almost forgets to breathe.

He finds himself in a boat with a boy who introduces himself as Blaise, and seems to be the only first year who isn't content with gaping openly at Harry as they cross the lake. He doesn't look at the water, he slows his breathing a fraction, and chooses to lock his eyes on the castle looming above him with such determination he feels his eyes begin to water.

The step onto the jetty could not be any more welcome and he exhales deeply as his knees gradually stop shaking. He follows behind the group with the boy named Blaise at his side, his eyebrows quirked slightly, though he doesn't see any need to scare this boy off, he seems like he'll leave Harry to himself.

Draco is only a few feet in front of him, bragging loudly about the fact that his father is a member of the school board, and has been for fifteen years. Harry wants to wring his neck. So, so badly.

He's never thought much of people that choose to brag, Dudley brags, Uncle Vernon brags, his year three teacher had bragged. Harry had put tacks on his chair.

The grass is damp, and it soaks through the bottom of his robes, chilling his ankles and causing him to grind his teeth loudly. He hates the feeling, it makes him uncomfortable.

The front doors open, and harsh golden light streams out across the lawn.

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><p>The ugly old hat finishes it's song to the rumble of applause, and Harry brings his hands together once or twice, concentrating hard on the words of the song. None of the houses sounded particularly terrible, though the descriptions were brief. He needed more information on them to possibly understand what he was getting himself into.<p>

He stared at the teachers table, taking in the long line of oddly dressed Professors carefully while Professor McGonagall read from a scroll of yellowed parchment between boney fingers.

"Granger, Hermione," goes to Gryffindor after a few moments of silence, it's one of the only sortings he actually pays attention to. The ceiling truly is fascinating, and he had overheard her referencing it from a text he hadn't caught the name of, he must find out.

Draco's two dumb-looking friends go straight into Slytherin, and Harry is mildly surprised, the House had seemed more appealing to more calculating characters, they didn't look like they were capable of calculating anything. He snorts to himself and looks back at the tatty old hat.

"Malfoy, Draco"

Harry watches the blonde swagger up to the front and clenches his fists. This boy is so incredibly weak, and yet here he is, staking his claim. He wants to be top dog, and that annoys Harry, because there are far more deserving people of that position.

The hat barely touches his head, shouting "SLYTHERIN!" loudly to the cheers of the table to Harry's far left.

He isn't expecting it when his own name is called, and he snaps back to reality, pulling his eyes away from the candles floating about his head. The room is suddenly filled with the hum over whispered conversation, and Harry has to push down the temptation to tell them all to shut their mouths. He has to get used to this useless muttering, because there's no getting away from it.

He walks up the three stairs and swivels his eyes around to the room at large, every eye is on him, and he allows himself the subtle twitch of a lip as he sits himself down on the stool, because these people really have no idea.

The hat drops over his eyes, and he falls into darkness.

"Hmm." Harry blinks, slightly taken aback by the small voice in his ear. "Difficult, very difficult, plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... But where to put you..."

Harry rested his hands blindly on his lap, before thinking quietly to himself. "Do your worst."

"Such cheek, Mr Potter. You will do great things, I do not doubt that for a moment. I know just what to do with you," and with that, the voice echoed loudly across the Hall, "SLYTHERIN!"

The hat left his head, and the bright light made him blink several times, before climbing from the stool and strolling towards the table that seemed to be clapping ridiculously, pointing at the other houses with sharp eyes and loud voices, "We got Potter!"

He sat himself next to a girl with a squashed looking face, her nose turned up and her eyes unusually far apart. As it turns out, Harry would come to regret this decision, as she had taken to clinging to his arm somewhere between shaking hands with a tall dark haired boy with an ornate 'HB' badge pinned to his chest, and having Blaise take up residence next to him, thumping him hard on the back and grinning broadly.

These people were a little too affectionate.

He managed to extract "Pansy, Pansy Parkinson, I'm sure you'll remember me," from his arm when the plates in front of him filled with a mountainous array of food, pushing her off unceremoniously and telling Blaise to shuffle along to give him some space. He seemed to get it.

He managed to get through half a plate of food under the scrutiny of the people around him, before slamming down his cutlery and glaring at them all in turn, including a rather surprised Draco, who immediately turned his attention back to an attempt at conversation with his dull friends.

Dinner seemed to drag on, and Harry spent a great deal of it telling Pansy to shove off and glaring at the rest of them angrily.

"Bloody hell, you lot!" he snapped at last, "Stop bloody staring at me, I'm not made of glass, and in case you hadn't noticed, I'm trying. To. Eat." At that, he stabbed his spoon into his pudding with contempt, growling softly and telling himself to breathe.

In, and out.

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><p>TBC<p>

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><p><em>Reviews? Maybe?<br>_

x


	2. Chapter 2

**Fahrenheit - Chapter 2** by HollyandHawthorn.

DISCLAIMER: Still own absolutely nothing. One day I plan on owning a significantly bigger house, though.

_A/N: I decided once I finished the last chapter that I just wanted to use that us the prologue, because I already have one story dealing with an eleven year old Harry and the older one is much more fun to write.  
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_I'm quite proud of the amount of background research I've been doing for this story, and I've almost managed to fill in all the obvious spaces that I'm missing. In the mean time, here's some Harry badness in the nicest way. He's not nasty, yet._

_Also for those of you who aren't aware, wizarding grades go as follows, O, E, A, P, D, T. O being the highest.  
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><p><strong>psy·chop·a·thy<strong> [sahy-**kop**-_uh_-thee]

(_noun_) A mental disorder in which an individual manifests amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.

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><p>Harry steps out of the charms classroom looking the image of effortless authority. It seemed to seep from his pores and into the air around him, making the students drop their gaze and cringe into alcoves when he stalks past them, bag hanging lazily from one shoulder and fiery green eyes staring determinedly forward.<p>

He's much taller than the day he first set foot in the castle, his fingers longer and his hair elegantly disheveled, his strides long and sure, and his lip curled into the charming half smile that had secretly won over every girl in Hogwarts.

It isn't real of course, just a mask to win over the teachers, who turn out to be far less of a challenge as each year goes by.

Fourth year is going to be excellent.

He had had to make adjustments over the years of course, his breaths became gradually more drawn out, slowing his counting and allowing him more give. It was far easier to recover when he slipped up when his breathing was deeper.

Blaise skids into the corridor behind him, Harry's used to the sound by now, because he's always the first out the door, leaving his roommate to catch up. Every. Single. Damn. Time.

"Where's Pansy?" he asks over his shoulder. The girl is a menace, and today is not the day for her to be simpering after him like a lost puppy, his patience is running far too thin.

"Headed off in the other direction, probably off trying to hunt down some idiot to hit on, I suspect." Blaise's voice has become incredibly deep over the summer. It suits him.

"So it's not just me then, stupid girl."

He takes the stairs two at a time, pushing aside a group of gossiping Ravenclaw girls with a lazy flick of the wrist and fixing them with an icy glare as he passes.

People in this school are frustrating. What he would give to stamp some sense into them all.

Blaise finally catches up. "She really is obsessed with you, isn't she," it isn't even a question.

"Again, stupid girl," his heels click against the floor loudly, left, right, left. "You would think she would've gotten the hint when I told her she looks like a squashed dog. Obviously she has a very unconventional sense of humour."

Blaise's laugh is deep and throaty, attracting the eyes of several students walking past. They don't dare look for long.

Harry hates Pansy so intensely that he's actually amazed that she's managed to stay alive this long, especially considering her constant need to touch him. He cannot stand being touched, it's too damn personal.

Blaise recovers from his laughing fit just as they enter the Great Hall, wiping his eyes on the back of his dark hand and leveling out his breathing with a heavy sigh.

The room is warm, the sky above them a patchy mix of periwinkle blue and annoyingly cotton-white clouds. People are always louder on days like this, and it makes his skin crawl.

He seats himself in a reasonably deserted section of the table, Blaise coming down beside him, his eyes set hungrily on the silver trays of food in front of them. "Pie, my favourite," he announces grandly, before scooping two onto his plate with his hands.

Harry watches him for a moment, before turning his eyes back to the offending pile of pies, wrinkling his nose.

Pie is definitely not one of his favourite foods, and all too often he spends the majority of the meal dissecting them on his plate with relish. Tearing flesh makes Harry's pulse race.

Oh, god, he loves it when his blood thumps harder in his veins.

He shivers, before taking his own pie from the summat of the stack with delicate fingers. Play food, just what he needs right now.

"S'good," Blaise mumbles beside him, having shoveled a huge chunk into his mouth, flakes of pastry showering back onto his plate.

"Eat with your damn mouth shut," Harry snaps, "what are you, five?"

"Bud s'so gud," the boy attempts again, holding the half eaten pie up for emphasis.

Harry stares at him through slightly narrowed eyes, tapping his finger slowly on the tabletop.

Blaise takes the hint, swallowing his mouthful and rolling his eyes. "Fine."

At that moment, somebody slumps onto the opposite bench with a heavy thud, and when Harry turns his scowl in the direction of the disturbance, he locks his eyes onto a harrassed looking Draco. He raises an eyebrow at the boy, waiting for the inevitable explanation of why Draco's day has been 'absolutely horrible.'

Two days ago he lost his favourite sweater and had sulked the whole day. It was under his bed the entire time, messy bastard.

Draco raises his eyes from the table, glancing at Harry for half a second before looking at Blaise, a wise decision he had learned to make back in their first year, "Pansy's following me," he sighs, and Harry snorts loudly before he can stop himself.

"I was just wondering where she'd got to, my shoulder seems to be missing it's puddle of drool," Harry shudders dramatically at the thought, and stabs his fork into his pie with contempt, twisting it slowly until the pastry begins to rip.

Blaise manages to not spray the table with fragments of steak and kidney by some miracle.

"I'd tell you to take it as a compliment, but the girls a slurry," he examines his fork as he speaks, "she really is no good. For anything."

But then again, who in this school is good for anything? The list is incredibly short.

"How's Quidditch practice, anyway?" Draco asks carefully, taking his own pie from the mountain between them. He's exceptionally braver than usual this year.

"Crabbe and Goyle are the most useless fucking Beaters I've ever seen."

"Hardly surprising," Blaise scratches a hand through his short black hair and shrugs, "The two are lucky to share a braincell. Think through their stomachs."

"Maybe I shoud tell Pucey to try a new tactic then," Harry pokes the pie pile absently with his finger, "Pelt some of these disgusting pies through the air and hope they fly straight."

Blaise definitely sprays the table with pie filling this time, much to Harry's horror.

He doesn't move. He just stares.

"That's disgusting Blaise, how very Millicent of you." Draco chuckles to himself, before lazily twitching his wand and vanishing the unpleasant mess.

"If I wasn't put off this pie before, I definitey am now," Harry huffs, jabbing a guilty looking Blaise in the ribs.

The rest of lunch passes in reasonable silence, much to Harry's pleasure, and once he's finished maiming his own uneaten pie, he chooses to pull his Transfiguration textbook from his bag and bury his nose in it's pages.

He loves the smell of books. This one has a strange peppermint undertone.

Inhale, exhale.

In, and out.

The general scraping of benches fifteen minutes later tells him it's time to get moving. The book snaps shut and lands on his lap with a dull thunk. He groans, turns his eyes to the obnoxiously bright sky and glares daggers at it. Stupid sky.

"Come on, Harry, time to go get killed by a Hippogriff," Blaise's hand gives his shoulder a quick squeeze, "I'm sure you'll love all the blood."

Harry actually smiles at this, and his whole body seems to grow intensely hot at the thought. Blaise really does know him far too well.

Or, at least enough to know Harry has a somewhat unusual infatuation with the rupturing of veins.

He savours the walk through the grounds, cleansing his lungs and making his fingertips tingle with every breath, and letting his hair blow about carelessly in the breeze. He wishes he could do something with it, but at the same time it gives him something to do with his hands in the classroom, attempt to flatten the mess, unsuccessfully, obviously.

"Oh god, here she comes."

The collective groan from all three of them seems to go somehow unheard by a fast approaching Pansy, Daphne Greengrass following close behind her with a resigned expression on her face.

"Hello Harry," Pansy bats her eyelashes at him, "Blaise, Draco."

"What do you want?" Harry's voice is as barbed as ever.

"Oh, nothing, really," she sighs, "Just wondering if you wanted to help me and Daphne with whatever stupid assignment this oaf's dug up."

"Fuck off, Pansy."

Harry is very protective of Hagrid, even despite the fact that he doesn't know the last thing about him. Because Hagrid brought him here, away from the fire and the screams and the burns that scarred the backs of his hands.

He stalks past her with a haughty expression on his face, fingers clenched into tight fists and his teeth grinding painfully as he focuses harder than ever on keeping his breathing even.

In, and out.

He'll kill her, painfully and tortuously slow, he'll break every finger, drop her to her knees and make her beg for her life. Beg to breathe. She's so fragile, and she doesn't even know it. He'll crack her ribs and tear her insides apart. Watch the light leave her eyes.

Watch the air leave her lungs.

_Oh, god, _how he longs for the day. He shivers violently before flicking his eyes back to attention, too many people.

Hagrid is trying to explain why mothering a crate of somewhat innocent looking Blast Ended Skrewts is going to be beneficial in any way. Harry is intrigued.

Draco snorts quietly beside him one of the tiny creatures is set atop the table and manages to set fire to Hagrid's shirtsleeve.

Harry cracks his knuckles.

Draco drops his gaze.

They've come to know each other rather well over the last few years, who says jump, and who asks how high.

Harry had managed to bottle his rage for five months, spending every moment out of class seated in the familiar surrounds of the library, glaring into books that taught him everything from the functions of a flobberworm to the history of Hogwarts itself. But it wasn't enough, because the tension was too much.

Everything had fallen in a heap just after Christmas of their first year, when Draco had bravely decided to bestow upon every student in the common room his opinions on 'Granger the Mudblood.' Harry had seen red in an instant, and the only thing he remembers of the next hour was the image of a wide eyed Draco pressing tender fingers to the purple hand prints wrapped gracefully around his neck.

He had not had the courage to utter a word for another month. Harry loved the silence, and vowed that should Draco ever stray again, he would be equally forceful in his message delivery.

People didn't dare doubt him after that, the flow of stupidly excitable questions dwindled, until finally, the only idiot dumb enough to hang from his arm and feign _friendship,_ was Princess Parkinson herself.

She will learn.

In, and out.

Harry has never read anything in relation to the Skrewts, even in the most particularly vicious magical creature books.

It didn't look like Hagrid had either, because the class assignment for the day is to try and figure out what the hell the fire propelled buggers actually eat.

Half an hour of dangling lettuce over a particularly bored looking Skrewt leaves Harry with no choice but to address the Library, hunt through books and try digging through the archives while Madam Pince isn't looking._ For student use, my ass._

He gives up just as the bell rings, tossing the lettuce leaf in the Skrewts face and glaring at it a he picks up his bag from the ground. He then turns, watches the small group of Gryffindor students walk together back up the hill, before narrowing his eyes at a very whiny Pansy.

_"_It almost stung me! I could have died!" she points a finger at a confused looking Hagrid, her eyes shining with - oh, god, not the damn waterworks again.

Harry walks up behind her quickly, rolling his eyes at Hagrid before ripping her away from him.

_"_Ow, Harry, that hurt!"

_"_Good."

Pansy looks scandalised. Harry looks darkly pleased with himself. She has no idea.

Blaise steps smartly between them with a loud groan, "One of them things tried setting my tie on fire, twice!" he holds it out in front of him, searching for some non-existent scorch mark on the fine green and silver fabric.

The day ends with a harrassed looking Harry stalking out of double Potions with his last essay clutched tightly in his hand. He walks alone back to the dormitory, shoving aside whoever stood in his way with particular force, and speaks the password through gritted teeth.

The door pushes open and cool green light fills his vision. He steps into the room at a more sedate pace, footsteps echoing off the wooden floor and the high stone walls, before dropping himself into his favourite chair with a huff, bag thudding down beside him.

He stares up at the glass ceiling for a long moment, the murky green water above him swirling gently as a lone Grindylow scoots past lazily. It's beautiful. Just like Hedwig. Though she is still far more beautiful than anything Harry has ever seen.

She always makes him feel better.

He unfurls his essay with rough hands and stares at it, running his eyes through his sentencing and trying to figure out where the hell he had managed to go wrong. He'd run over it ten times or more before he had handed it in, he was sure there was nothing at all at fault with it, and yet there it was, in reluctant black ink, a bold letter _'E_.'

He stuffs it unceremoniously into his bag and scrubs at his hair, it really shouldn't annoy him so much.

The common room door opens and the room is suddenly filled with merciless chatter, heavy footsteps are the stupid laughter of Gregory Goyle.

Harry stares resolutely at the empty fireplace, using his wand to occasionally fling lumps of charcoal across the room. People stay away from him, until Blaise walks in some time later to come stand in front of Harry with his arms crossed over his chest.

He holds in his hand a neat scroll of parchment, much like the one that Harry had just scrunched messily into his bag.

"Do you want to know what I got, Potter?" he asks snidely, shaking the piece of parchment in front of him, "I got an _E,_ and you know what I think of that?" He throws the scroll down into Harry's lap, "I think that's damn good. So stop whining about how rubbish a grade it is just because you didn't get the damn _O_ you're used to."

He stalks off toward their dormitory, leaving Harry with his essay and a very confusing feeling.

He pushes it away, he has no time for such rubbish.

A group of first years slump themselves down on the lounges next to Harry's chair. They're only new, and they don't know anything. The Slytherin's have always liked keeping the younger students in the dark, especially about who not to talk to.

"You're Harry Potter, aren't you," asks a boy with dirty brown hair and an incredibly large nose.

Harry looks at him coldly for a moment before looking down at Blaise's essay again.

"I'm Lex Crowley, I'm sure you've heard all about my family," this kid sounds weirdly familiar, Harry looks back up at him in silence, who the hell does he think he is? "My father works for Nimbus, you know, the _broomstick_ company? He's one of the designers."

That's what it is, he sounds like Draco in his first year. _My father's on the board of directors for Hogwarts, you know? _The words rang in his ears as he dug blunt fingernails into the leather arms of his chair, _We're having the minister for magic over for dinner during the Christmas break, you know?_

Lex Crowley is still talking._  
><em>

Harry's on his feet before he knows what he's doing, his breathing hard, but still under control, just. He grabs the boy's tie hard and yanks him to his feet, bringing his face down right into his personal space. He can taste the fear on his breath, and his fingers start to tingle.

"I don't give a damn about your father, boy, I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid of a broomstick maker," his voice is cold and deathly quiet, dripping with power that seems to roll off of him like heat, "if you think you can scare people into liking you, then I suggest you look elsewhere, because you haven't seen fear. Your threats are empty."

He drops a much paler Lex back onto his chair, the crowd of first years around him stunned into silence. He doesn't even bother to wait for anybody to so much as flinch, snatching up Blaise's essay and his schoolbag and stomping off toward the dormitory, eyes aflame and his entire body tingling.

It felt so good, but so bad at the same time.

He slams the door hard behind him and drops face first onto his bed, groaning heavily and balling his sheets in his hands.

"First years?" Blaise's voice is a distinct monotone, his studying voice.

"Is that even a question?" Harry turns his head and eyes him carefully. Blaise is a strange person, he reminds Harry very much of himself sometimes, except perhaps the violent part. Blaise is gentle, but his words can slice through stone.

He had always kept to himself, much like Harry.

The tingling has become so intense now that Harry's body begins to shake, waves of heat rushing in his blood and an easy, swirling euphoria falling over him. It scares him more than he's willing to admit.

"I'm going for a walk," he says quickly, pulling himself away from the sheets and smoothing out his shirt, "I'll be back for dinner."

Blaise nods curtly and turns his attention back to what looks like Charms homework.

His rage at a now silent Lex seems to have worked, because hen he makes his way back through the common room, every first year's eyes fall onto him, their skin growing simultaneously pale. _Good,_ he thinks to himself as he slams the door shut on them,_ that's one less thing I have to do._

He can feel the heat pulsing around him now, so intense that his breathing is becoming harder and his skin is tingling so intensely he can barely concentrate on anything else. He craves fresh air, the sting of chilled wind on the back of his neck and the cold sensation as the oxygen invades his lungs.

He steps into the Entrance Hall and pauses, looking between the open Oak front doors and the marble staircase, before making his decision. Stepping off with particular finality.

The owlery smells like feathers and fresh straw, the soothing sound of sleepy hooting greeting him as he pushes open the thin wooden door. It takes several seconds for him to spot the glow of white high in the rafters, amber eyes looking down on him enquiringly and he smiles at her, genuine and wide, a smile reserved only for her.

She swoops down from her perch, landing delicately on Harry's outstretched arm and nibbling fondly at his knuckles. She looks up at him, head tilted to the side and feathers shining in the late afternoon sunlight.

She's just so damn beautiful.

His breathing stutters slightly, and he doesn't even care, running a gentle hand over her chest and letting her soft cooing wash over him.

And then there is nothing but the sharp stabbing pain shooting up his leg.

He yelps loudly, Hedwig wobbling precariously on his arm and glaring down at the source, Harry follows her gaze instantly, his eyes narrowing onto a very fat black cat, who appeared to be using Harry's leg as a tree.

Talons sink into his flesh and his hisses again, shaking his leg in attempt to throw off the stupid animal, but it only clings on tighter.

"Meow."

Millicent Bulstrode, I am going to throw your cat into the fucking lake.

His free hand flies down to the scruff of the cat's neck, ripping it from his leg with another particularly painful hiss. The cat seems unfazed, instead using it's new found height to swipe it's claws at a shocked looking Hedwig, hissing and spitting at her.

The cat wants to hurt her.

How the hell did it even get up here?

He turns to look back at the door, still standing slightly open from his own entry and rolls his eyes, looks back at Hedwig and groans.

"Go sit up high, okay?" She gets the message, fixing the cat with a final amber eyed stare before taking off into the highest rafters. Harry turns his attention to the cat writhing in his grasp, and his blood boils.

It wanted to hurt Hedwig, to sink it's claws into her like it had to him. It wanted to hurt the only beautiful thing Harry had. His grip tightens, and he stalks out of the owlery, grinding his teeth together, the heat around him was almost unbearable now, but damn did it feel good.

He doesn't know how he manages to get through the castle without meeting anyone, though he doubts it would matter, even Dumbledore couldn't stop him now. His footsteps shatter the silence, the cat scratches at his exposed wrist, and the sticky hotness of blood makes his heart race, his breathing is ragged now.

This is so not good.

But it is so good.

He stomps through the open front doors and onto the warm grass, making a beeline toward the lake, and stopping himself some twenty feet from the muddy shore. He won't go any closer.

Millicent Bulstrode's obese cat continues it's assault on his hand, hissing loudly.

He summons all his strength.

And pelts the stupid animal straight into the lake.

"DON'T COME NEAR MY FUCKING BIRD!"

He watches the animal flounder for a few minutes, feeling his rage seeping out of him, before looking down at his hand, and smiling darkly. Blood runs in rivers over his skin, flowing down to his fingertips and dripping silently into the grass, staining it the colour of rubies.

He raises it to his eyes, inspecting the gashes across the back of his hand with crude satisfaction. He listens intently to the thrashing of water for a moment longer, before turning back to the castle.

Pansy, it seems, will live to annoy another day.

* * *

><p>"What the hell did you do to your hand?"<p>

"Battled a Hippogriff," Harry quirks an eyebrow at Blaise in complete nonchalance, "Reckon they'll have to amputate?"

He glances over at Draco, who rolls his eyes before looking down at his peas. "I wouldn't put it past you," Blaise laughs, "Battling Hippogriffs..." He shovels mashed potato into his mouth as he ponders the idea.

That boy really does have a bottomless stomach.

"Has anybody seen my cat?" Harry flicks his eyes to a very distressed looking Millicent and smirks, "I haven't seen him all afternoon..."

He looks back down at his own plate, stabbing peas onto his fork.

Millicent Bulstrode, I have thrown your fucking cat into the lake.

In, and out.

_Review? Do I dare? x_


	3. Chapter 3

**Fahrenheit - Chapter 3 **by HollyandHawthorn

DISCLAIMER: I am now the proud owner of a brand new scar on the side of my head, but not Harry Potter, quite yet.

I should probably take this opportunity to tell you guys that this is going to get very, very messy. It's going to get far worse than throwing cats into lakes, I know that much. Just consider yourselves warned, Harry isn't exactly a nice person.

_A/N This story is taking me a little while, because Harry has a very different mind from a normal person, it makes his point of view interesting to perfect. Hope it's worth the wait though. As one reviewer described him, he's like a tornado.  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>ob·ses·sion [<strong>əb-_se_-**sh**-_ən_]

(noun) 1. The state of being obsessed with someone or something.

2. An idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind.

* * *

><p>It's much easier for Harry to breathe when he loses control, but it's one of many situations where too much of a good thing can come very close to destroying you. He's experienced his fair share of near death experiences, and he is in no way inclined to pitch himself from the astronomy tower any time soon.<p>

The truth is, he loves living. He loves the way the the air catches on the roof of his mouth when he exhales and he likes the feeling of his pulse thrumming so close to the surface in his neck, his wrists, and under his temples. He loves the way his muscles shift under his skin and the sheer strength of his own movements.

He likes to throw things, and to pull things, and to watch a pulse fade.

In, and out.

He enters the library slightly later than usual after dinner, having taken the time to scrub the mess from his hand to make himself at least feel presentable and avoid far more prying questions than those of his Slytherin peers. He didn't like being questioned, especially for details of the things that he very much had to keep to himself. Such as the whereabouts of Millicent Bulstrode's stupid cat.

He walks along the familiar aisles of the library feeling increasingly at ease with the dramatic change in environment. Where the rest of the castle is chaotic, the library is a place of acute organisation, by subject, author and title, he gravitates towards it naturally, and though the frequent angry glares of Madam Pince follow his every footstep throughout the maze of shelves, he finds it incredibly peaceful.

His bag drops from his shoulder and onto the carpet with a soft thud, drawing annoyed brown eyes away from the thick book opened on the table in front of him.

"You're late," Hermione hisses, pointing at her wrist for emphasis.

"By five minutes, I can't have missed anything too dramatic," He pulls a book from his bag and sits smartly on the chair opposite the annoyed looking brunette, back straight, feet together.

"It still would have been nice to not have to sit here putting up with all the fifth years over there gaping at me," she points over her shoulder, where a group of strange looking Hufflepuffs sit whispering animatedly to one another.

Harry narrows his eyes at them for a moment, "They're harmless," he whispers to her, flipping his book to page 72 and inhaling deeply.

Harry had always been intrigued by Hermione, from the moment he had met her on the Hogwarts Express he knew there was some kind of bright spark buried inside her, flickering in her eyes when she spoke and seeping into her magic. She truly was extraordinary.

Harry had found her on the second day of school in their first year, immersed in a particularly beaten-up book and sitting in the same seat that she is now. They had started off talking about charms, a subject Hermione had taken a particular shining to, before slowly moving on to bigger and better things. They argued about a lot of things now, deep political rages about the Goblin Revolution that left them red in the face, and smaller things, like why eggs are far better poached than scrambled.

She's the strangest kind of normal that Harry has, and the only person in the entire castle that isn't even the slightest bit intimidated by him.

"What on Earth have you done to yourself?" she grabs hold of his hand before he gets a chance to react, pulling it towards herself and running tentative fingers over the deep gashes still fresh on his skin, "You didn't kick Crookshanks again, did you?"

"Oh, please," he mutters, snatching his hand back to his chest, "I made that mistake once, do you really think I'm stupid enough to make it again?" Yes, Harry, yes you are.

"No, of course not," she raises a pretty eyebrow at him, "What did you do, then?"

"Nothing," he snaps.

"It's clearly not nothing, Harry"

"Drop it, Hermione."

"No, Harry," she says, glaring hard at him, "I'm not going to drop it, you're hurt-"

"Hermione Granger," he growls, standing now and leaning across the table, towering over her and exuding the smallest fragment of his frustration, "I. Did. Nothing. Wrong."

She stares up at him for a moment, eyes wide and mouth tightly closed, before nodding curtly and dropping her eyes back to the heavy book in front of her. She's incredibly smart, but sometimes she forgets just how intensely Harry hates being questioned. He'd never lay a finger on Hermione, but there are days when she needs to be reminded of his capabilities.

He drops back down into he seat and turns his attention back to his book, ignoring the growing silence in favour of a rather dry account of the living habits of the Bowtruckle.

The back of his hand itches ever so slightly, and he glances at it coldly, watching as the wounds sew themselves back together neatly, leaving behind a series of fine white lines on his skin that glow in the candlelight. They look strange, like a messy criss cross pattern embedded into his flesh, there for him to admire in the darkness of night or the glaring sunlight of the day.

It beautiful magic, and one thing that Harry has never quite managed to get a grasp of, healing. Perhaps it's the fact that he loves the sight of blood so much that he could never possibly dream of wanting to close a wound and stop the flow.

He glances up at Hermione, who tucks her wand back into her pocket and shrugs gently, "I'm sorry, Harry," she whispers, "I know you don't like questions... I shouldn't have pushed."

"It's fine," he whispers in return, glaring momentarily at the group of Hufflepuffs now noisily exiting the library, followed closely by a flustered Madam Pince, "It really is nothing, you've got to stop worrying about me, I'm a big boy."

She laughs quietly, bowing her head to her book to hide the smile spreading across her face.

Harry doesn't laugh, but he does smile crookedly at her, before flicking over the page in his book and continuing the enthralling tale of wand trees.

They don't have any more disagreements, though Harry does do a lot of eye rolling when Hermione tells him the latest news surrounding the somewhat-frustrating-but-still-charming Ron Weasley, and Hermione tuts a great deal more than usual when Harry expresses his rather unpleasant opinions of arrogant first years.

They leave the library with ten minutes until curfew, bidding their farewells and heading in opposite directions.

A lot of the students consider Harry and Hermione's 'friendship' as somewhat unconventional, eying them in the corridors on the occasions that Hermione drops a book into Harry's bag, or Harry swaps his potions essay with hers so they can collaborate. Slytherins and Gryffindors getting along seems to be such an unfathomable concept to most of the student body, and the somewhat legendary rivalry between the two Houses does little to make Harry and Hermione an any more acceptable duo.

Of course, such tolerance of the Gryffindor House doesn't extend to such matters as that of Quidditch. Harry is considered to be the most ruthless player in the school, and his apparent lack of empathy for the opposition has frequently left players with broken limbs.

The air is unseasonably cool for early autumn, and as Harry makes his solitary descent towards the Slytherin dormitory, his skin prickles under his shirt, and the slow flourish of goose pimples across his arms makes him grind his teeth together. Cold isn't something he takes lightly to, when the heat he is so capable of creating offers a far better comfort to his flesh than this somewhat painful outbreak of the shivers.

He reaches the door to the common room, muttering the password and rubbing his arms as he steps through the gap in the wall.

Back to chaos.

Oh, god, breathe.

The common room looks as though it's been hit by a bomb, though Harry thinks it's far more likely to have been caused by the somewhat over excitable group of first years bounding around the place in a red faced euphoria that Harry can't manage to place.

They appear to have overturned a great deal of the furniture in their haste, and Harry just about sees red.

He spots a horrified looking Blaise on the other side of the room and exhales hard through his nose, setting off through the riot towards the frightened fourth year.

"What the hell is going on?" He practically yells when he reaches Blaise, who blinks at him confusedly and shakes his head.

"They just exploded."

"Where the fuck are the prefects?"

"Dumbledore's office," Blaise shouts over the hysterical giggles of small children all around them.

Harry hates children. He hates them as much as he hates questions, maybe more.

"That's it," Harry growls, turning back to the group of feral first years, midway through taking turns leaping from levitated lounges and onto the small coffee table near the fire.

Breathe, Harry. Breathe.

He raises his wand above his head and glares hard at the group, "_Silencio_," he mutters, watching as the painfully high pitched squeals turn themselves on mute and the common room becomes abruptly silent. The lounge thumps back to the ground along with a wide eyed Lex, who turns his attention straight to a now mutinous looking Harry.

"Get. Out." he whispers, his shoulders shaking violently and his breathing gradually falling apart as the seconds tick past. "GET OUT!"

All the blood seems to rush out of the ten faces in front of him simultaneously, and suddenly the room is filled with hurried footsteps as the group make their escape before Harry manages to blow them up.

He catches a white faced Lex by the collar and drags him back to stand in front of him.

In, and out.

He has the strangest feeling that the brown haired boy has got everything to do with the mess of a common room in front of Harry, and holds tight to the back of his collar as he speaks, his voice quiet and measured, though sharp enough to cut diamonds.

"Care to explain why the common room looks as though it's been trampled by centaurs?" he asks, twirling his wand in his free hand as he releases the silencing charm.

Lex looks as though he's about to be hit by a train, and Harry's body gives another violent shudder at the sight.

"I-I didn't-I mean-"

"You, Lex Crowley, son of Mr. Nimbus, are going to find yourself hanging by your ankles from the astronomy tower." Harry hisses, "And do not think that I'm joking."

He somehow manages to grow even whiter, and Harry's fingers begin to shake.

Inhale, exhale.

"Don't give me the satisfaction."

He lets go, and Lex Crowley scampers away in a flash.

Harry turns back to the small gathering of students behind him, narrowing his eyes at the group and huffing loudly. "What is wrong with you people?"

They stare at him.

Pansy seems to be the only one stupid enough to open her mouth. Of course.

"What do you mean what's wrong with us? They're the ones who trashed the common room!" She whines, "Or didn't you notice them jumping off furniture?"

Oh, what he would give to just shut her up for good. "For your information, _Pansy_, I'm quite aware of what they were doing." He balls his hands into fists, taking several slow steps in her direction, "But why, may I ask you, could thirty much bigger Slytherins, not manage to shut up ten stupid fucking first years?"

Silence.

Harry growls under his breath, turning on his heel and pacing over to where the furniture is strewn across the floor. He stops just short of the mess, dragging his wand horizontally through the air and letting his eyes fall closed for a moment as his fingertips tingle, the furniture returning itself to it's original places, cushions landing gently on the chairs and the small collection of candles scattered around the room flying back onto the now upright coffee table.

He turns back to the frozen group behind him. "You people are pathetic."

* * *

><p>It takes two weeks for anybody besides Blaise and Hermione to speak to Harry, and, especially in the case of Princess Parkinson, Harry couldn't be happier. The first years remain pin drop silent for far longer, and often turn their eyes to Harry whenever he enters the common room, shift from the lounges when he approaches and watch him go about his somewhat thrilling business of completing homework.<p>

The quiet calms Harry's mind, and his breathing settles to a point where he barely even needs to concentrate on it anymore. For now at least.

It's early morning, Harry knows because while he can still hear the heavy snores of Crabbe on the opposite side of the room, the small glass panel in the ceiling is glowing a deep shade of green. Not-quite-sunrise.

He pulls himself out of bed, ripping his towel from where it hangs on the curtain rod on his bed and running sluggish fingers through his messy hair. He's never been any good at sleeping in, mainly because having other people awake around him sets his teeth on edge. He's always been the last to sleep, and the first to wake.

The tiles of the bathroom are freezing, and they make Harry cringe slightly as he pads his way over to the hot spring embedded in the floor, and strips off his pyjamas.

The water is warm on his skin, and he sinks down into it until his feet touch the cobbled floor. He stands, and the water laps gently at his shoulders, threatening to dampen the hair on the nape of his neck.

He doesn't like water, like, really doesn't like water, at all. Sometimes he blames it on all the cold showers he went through as a child, and sometimes he blames it on that time that he nearly drowned.

It wasn't a particularly pleasant day. The sky had been a murky shade of grey and and the water so bone chillingly cold the Harry's lips had turned blue. But he couldn't get out. Dudley had pushed him in the moment they had arrived at the local pool, leaving him floundering in the deep end to the sound of Dudley's squealing laughter. He had lasted eight painful minutes before his head had dipped below the surface.

Harry had gotten them back, though. All of them.

He scrubs himself clean, before dragging himself out of the bath and pulling on a pair of trousers.

A rather disheveled looking Draco shuffles into the bathroom, his hair sleep-mussed and his eyes only half open against the brightening morning sunlight.

"G'morning," he mumbles, making his way over to the sink to admire his toothbrush with mild interest. Draco has never been a morning person.

"Morning," Harry replies, picking his own toothbrush from the cup on the sink and going about brushing his teeth in silence.

Draco stands there, watching Harry's reflection in the mirror and tugging at a stray strand of hair now hanging between his eyes. "Hey, Harry?"

"Mmm?"

"What time is it?"

"I'unno," Harry mumbles around his toothbrush. He looks up at the skylight behind him, his guess, it'd have to be, "'round, six thirdy, I reckon." He isn't even sure why Draco is talking to him, especially considering even a very loud mouthed Pansy hasn't uttered a word to him since the rather well rumoured incident with the first years.

It's too early to think into anything though, and Harry's brain isn't quite functioning past the point of breathe in, breathe out.

"You need a haircut," says Draco, his eyes a little wider now, toothbrush still clutched in his hand as the other scratches at his hair. He glances over at Harry, whose face is arranged in an expression that screams 'are you kidding me.'

Ten minutes and a great deal of glaring later, Harry exits the bathroom in search of a shirt, his hair still stubbornly messy and his brain quickly catching up with what exactly is going on around him.

He buttons his shirt slowly, listening to the stirring of Blaise to his left, and the soft rattle of each intake of breath in his nose. It sounds as though he's beginning to get a cold, perhaps he should go raid Madam Pomfrey's stash of pepper up while she isn't looking.

He loops his tie around his neck, tying it carefully and smoothing it down against the stark whiteness of his dress shirt. He wonders for a moment how the house elves managed to get all the bloodstains out of his clothing, before discarding the though in favour of hunting down the Slytherin pin he attatched to his tie every day, and lost somewhere in this bloody room every night. He found it under his bed, sighing happily, before taking a few seconds to balance his breathing. No more errors, he couldn't afford another loss of control.

By the timee he's tying the laces on his shoes, Blaise has finally managed to grudgingly pull himself from bed, and Draco, looking slightly more alert, walks out of the bathroom, fingers combing through his now much-neater hair and bare chest gleaming with undried droplets of water.

Harry turns to look at him just as he finishes with his shoes, and for the strangest reason, his stomach feels as though it's filled with helium and lead all at the same time. He watches Draco pull his shirt up over his shoulders, the slow flex of muscles beneath pale skin, and suddenly the only thing he wants to do is sink his blunt fingernails into his pretty skin.

That is not normal.

He stands, and walks quickly from the room, nodding curtly at a dazed looking Blaise as he goes and completely missing the silver eyes that follow him as he walks out the door.

Breakfast on a Friday morning consists of bacon, eggs, and a ridiculous amount of mushrooms. Harry eyes them suspiciously, poking his fork experimentally into the bowl at the table's centre. He lifts one of the odd little domes up in front of his face, scrutinising it with a wrinkled nose and narrowed eyes.

He drops it down onto his plate, continuing to poke at it until he finally feels hungry enough to actually eat something. Poached eggs are definitely better than scrambled eggs. He laughs to himself, turning to look over at the Gryffindor table, where Hermione sits, nose buried in a book, and fork hanging motionless in the air, piled with scrambled egg.

She only reads slightly more than he does, and he gives her that, considering that the pair of them are far more competitive than people realise, chasing after that Outstanding as though their lives depend upon it. If one doesn't get it, then the other does, it's always been that way.

He's alone at the Slytherin table for fifteen minutes, when several half asleep fifth and seventh years coming shuffling into the hall, bags under their eyes and hands groping blindly for whatever food they can get a hold of, Harry finds himself somewhat entertained until Draco appears opposite him, scooping food hungrily onto his plate and determinedly avoiding Harry's heavy gaze.

Harry doesn't really feel the urge to mark his skin that much anymore, though his curiosity is still tapping insistently at his skull. It feels strange. Foreign, but it makes his pulse race, and his breath hitch so minutely that nobody would even notice, except Harry. Harry always notices. He likes the feeling, even though he couldn't identify it to save himself.

He doesn't say a word, and neither does Draco. Harry produces his Herbology textbook from his bag, digging his nose into it until the time for class finally rolls around.

Blaise grumbles the whole way through Herbology, and is still picking dirt from under his fingernails when the fourth years finally sit down at lunch, Shepherds Pie. Thank god it's something he'll actually eat. He doesn't notice Pansy dropping down next to him until she's running a manicured fingernail across the back of his hand on the table.

Fantastic, he thinks, this must mean she's gotten her nerve back.

"Say, Harry, you don't suppose you could help me study for that Transfiguration test we have on Monday, do you?" she bats her eyelashes like usual, and Harry wants nothing more than to throw her in the lake alongside that stupid cat, "You see, I'm terrible at it and I could really do with the practice."

Draco stares at her, Blaise stares at her, and Harry turns to her after a moment, fork twisting in his hand and green eyes ablaze with something far more frightening than anything Pansy has ever witnessed. He's angry, so angry that he feels his face and hands heat until it's almost unbearable. When he speaks, it's barely a whisper.

"Here's how it goes, Princess, you are not my type, not even the tiniest little bit, and if you keep laying it on so damn thick, you're going to end up hanging right next to our little friend Lex over there," he waves briefly at the first year, who looks petrified at the mere mention of his name, "take a hint, Parkinson."

"I'm everyone's type, Harry, even yours," she pines, her voice vibrating in Harry's brain and making his eyes hurt.

"Lay off, Pansy," Blaise drones, pulling her off of Harry and squeezing himself between the two of them.

Harry rolls his eyes, elbowing Blaise in the ribs and the conversation ends.

All thoughts of Pansy leave Harry's mind when he sits down for his afternoon classes, and he spends the better part of potions admiring the rolled up sleeves of a somewhat oblivious Draco as he goes about his work. He doesn't understand. But he doesn't really want to, either.

Inhale, exhale.

In, and out.

_Next up, Princess Parkinson bashing._


	4. Chapter 4

**Fahrenheit - Chapter 4 **by HollyandHawthorn

DISCLAIMER: I apparently own a dog that has a severe snoring problem. Not Potter though.

_A/N: I get tension headaches from all of my uni work, it's something I've learned to live with. In fact, I'm writing with one right now, so it's only right that Harry should get one too. So here you are, grumbly headache Harry. In other news, I've managed to throw out my whole routine through daylight savings and am now in a rather tight spot at work, oh dear, time to turn on those stupidly happy smiles and make coffee like a champ for the next few days, or risk my boss exploding everywhere. I feel bad. Oh well.  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>con·trol <strong>[kən-**trō****l**]

(_noun_): The power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events.

(_verb_): Determine the behavior or supervise the running of.

* * *

><p>Harry sits in potions with his cheek pressed into the palm of his hand, textbook opened to a rather elaborate potion that he's already miles ahead on. He stirs it slowly, watching the colours change gradually from green to a violent pink, before tossing the next set of ingredients haphazardly into his cauldron.<p>

He isn't distracted so much, nor overly tired. But he has the worst fucking headache imaginable. It feels like it's clawing at the backs of his eyes, throwing itself at the walls of his skull and seeping it's dull, numbing ache all the way down to his neck. He's had it for hours now, and it's draining all his energy just trying to keep his damn eyes open.

He blames it on Pansy.

It isn't even that she's having another one of her extra clingy, extra whiny phases, or that she's been asking him questions so stupidly obvious that he feels like thumping his forehead into the stone walls. No, she's just being her normal, frustrating self, but Harry feels like ripping the hairs out of his head just at the site of her.

He really has to do something about her, before he explodes.

In, and out.

He glances down at the instructions in front of him, eying step number eight skeptically before glaring into his cauldron. Everything seems fine, now it just needs to stew for a few days. He sits back on his stool, hooking his feet around the legs and pulling his face away from his hand just as he recieves a sharp jab to the ribs.

The look of contempt he shoots at Draco makes the other boy snort, a smile quirking the corners of his lips as he points awkwardly at his own cauldron, "I'm only at step five, care to enlighten me as to how the hell you managed to get it to thin?"

Harry blinks at him, cracking his knuckles gently in his lap before huffing dramatically, standing to peer into Draco's cauldron, before raising an eyebrow. "At least it's salvageable," he jabs a thumb in Goyle's direction, where the boy appears to be struggling to stir a potion that has taken up the same consistency of tar. "You just need to stir it anticlockwise a few times, it'll be fine."

He drops back onto his seat without another word, and presses his fingers back to his temple, massaging the side of his head in an attempt to ease the tension in his brain. Snape walks in his direction, Harry's eyes following the tall black figure as he winds his way through the tables to glance into Harry's cauldron. He isn't horrible to Harry, though he isn't particularly pleasant either.

He gives a reluctant nod of approval before sweeping away, Harry's eyes still staring down at the table and his thumb still pressed against his head.

God, damn, it hurts.

Draco's staring at him. He can feel his eyes boring into the side of his head.

Maybe he's adding to this headache as well, just a little bit.

Harry runs his spare hand through messy dark hair, letting his eyes fall closed for a moment and sighs. His headache rears it's ugly head, sinking it's claws back into his eyes for a moment as he attempts to think. It shouldn't hurt to think.

Draco seems to be invading his mind far more often than what Harry would like, images of bare pale skin and shimmering grey eyes haunt him in his sleep, sleepy conversations follow him around all day, and when Draco stares at him, like he is right now, Harry's skin feels like it's going to catch fire. His blood rushes to every impossible part of his body with the power of a tsunami, ripping it's way down to his fingertips, down the bridge of his nose and into his stomach, uncoiling itself into some vast, intense humming that consumes him. It's all wrong. Nobody should make him feel like that.

Because there's only one thing that can make Harry feel like that.

He often stares wide eyed at the ceiling of an evening, counting over and over the pattern of his breathing, never satisfied that it's perfect, he feels thrown off balance. He walks through the school with the same harsh expression plastered on his face, his strides still long and sure, but inside, his mind is warring with itself.

He doesn't understand.

A firm hand squeezes his shoulder, and he finally snaps his eyes open, turning to look at a worried looking Blaise. "You alright?" the dark boy asks slowly, "You look like you've been hit by a train."

"Thanks a lot," Harry snaps, flicking his book closed and shoving it unceremoniously back into his bag as Professor Snape sweeps around for another lap. "I'm fine."

* * *

><p>Pansy is clearly the most popular girl in all of Hogwarts.<p>

She has all the boys going gaga over her and all the girls are jealous of her almost-relationship with Harry Potter, she does well in her classes and all of her jokes are funny. Everybody loves her, it's a fact. And nothing is ever going to change that fact.

The only thing left for her on her climb to the top spot is to get Harry to actually admit that he's obviously head over heels in love with her, which she thinks may happen sometime in the next few weeks. She's been preparing for it for a long time, almost two years in fact, ever since that time he had asked to borrow a quill because his had broken in class.

He hadn't given it back to her, so obviously he was keeping it as some kind of reminder as to how amazing Pansy really is. She never said anything about it, of course, instead choosing to make it as obvious as possible that she clearly returned his romantic feelings.

She likes knowing that she's the only girl on his mind, and she loves the way his eyes darken every time he spares her a glance. He definitely feels the same way.

She walks down the corridor on the fifth floor, shoving her way past a group of scrawny second years, commenting on the terrible state of their uniforms as she passes, "Did you all dress in the dark this morning? Or do you still need mummy to tie your ties?" she drawls, Millicent laughing loudly at her elbow and a vicious smile gracing her lips.

"That was a good one, Pansy," Millicent giggles as they near the door to Charms, heels clacking on the stone floor and their laughter echoing from the high walls.

"I know," she replies.

The classroom vibrates with quiet chatter, and Pansy notes the absence of Professor Flitwick happily, falling into her usual chair right in front of Harry and tapping her manicured fingers on the tabletop. They share this class with the Gryffindors, a group of arrogant and somewhat dim students with terrible hair and a weird need to help each other _all the time. _She wrinkles her nose at them, before turning her attention to the little man making his way to the front of the room.

Charms as it turns out, is an incredibly boring subject, and before Pansy knows it, she's drifted off into her own little world, imagining all the romantic ways Harry could admit his feelings to her, down by the lake as the sun sets, serenading her in front of the whole school at dinner - could Harry even sing? She hopes so. Maybe he'd take her to that adorable little tea shop in Hogsmeade and buy her coffee.

She turns in her seat to spare him a glance, only to find that he isn't even looking at her, in fact, he's looking in completely the wrong direction, his chin balanced on his free hand as his wand waves vaguely at the little collection of bells on his desk. She turns the other way, looking for whatever it is Harry looking at so intensely.

Because if it's a girl, well, that just won't do.

But it isn't a girl. Not even Daphne, who's about as much competition as Pansy could possibly have. It's Draco.

She stares, dropping her wand onto the tabletop and quirking an eyebrow. This didn't make any sense whatsoever. She turns back to look at Harry, who continues waving his wand, bells jingling onto the table and eyes set off to the side. It isn't until Blaise clears his throat loudly that Harry snaps his head around to look at her, eyes grow darker, and it feels like he's almost trying to burn her with his eyes.

Go, that's so hot.

"What?" he snaps, lip twitching slightly as he continues to stare right at her.

"Oh, nothing," she says, attempting nonchalance, "just wondering what you were staring at."

"That," Harry growls, voice low and husky, "is none of your business, Pansy." He picks up his wand again, shoving it into his pocket and scooping up the little collection of bells on his table.

"Oi!" Blaise yelps before Harry gets too far, "throw me one!"

The bell hits Blaise square in the face, and Pansy can't help but laugh, Harry is such a charmer, and he always seems to go out of his way to impress Pansy with silly things like that.

Blaise glares at her, hard, so she twists back around to the front, glancing over at Draco, who follows Harry's movements to the front of the room, before dropping his eyes back to his work. It's really quite odd, and Pansy has absolutely no idea what the pair of them are playing at.

"Miss Parkinson, eyes on your own work, thank you!" Flitwick squeaks from behind her, and she gives up wondering whats up with Draco for now.

* * *

><p>Harry's still pressing his fingers to his temples by the time dinner rolls around, and while his headache continues it's persistent assault on his sanity, Pansy appears to be all for adding her little bit to the pressure cooker as well.<p>

"...and then they told me that I was just some stupid girl," she whines, her voice vibrating through his head from where she sits, wedged between a disgruntled looking Blaise and himself, "I mean, why would somebody say something like that to me? I'm obviously very intelligent, did you know I'm sitting on an A average for all my classes this year?"

"I don't care."

"I'm doing much better than what I was last year, especially with that god awful McGonagall woman giving me a D for my stupid exam, who needs transfiguration, anyway?" Harry shuffles a few inches further away from her, glaring down at his roast and holding his hands firmly to the sides of his face. Every fiber in his body wants to shut her up, his fingers itch for it.

But he can't right now, because there are four hundred other students sitting around him, and he has no doubt that the teachers would be watching him closely right now, too.

He tastes bile in his throat as his head continues to throb, and the whole room begins to spin.

Oh, god, in, and out.

He closes his eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply before pushing himself up from his chair, away from the sickly sweet smell of Pansy's perfume, and the persistent yammering of her voice. He barely even hears her protests as he starts walking, hands still holding his head and his footing unsure.

This is all her fault, Pansy and her big mouth and persistent hands, her inability to tie a windsor knot correctly, and the fluttering of her eyelashes that makes her look like she's having a seizure.

Harry hates Pansy.

He hates her with everything he has, it spreads through his body like some awful disease, clinging to his muscles and his bones, weakening the mental structure he works so carefully to maintain. She's wearing him down. She has to go.

His footsteps crackle in his ears loudly as he descends the steps toward the dungeons, his eyes barely opened against the flare of the torches on the walls. His feet drag slightly, catching on the rough edges of the stone floor and tripping him up as he goes, and his hands still clasped around his head.

He doesn't really have any idea if he's going in the right direction, merely hoping that his feet have tread this trail enough over the last three years to lead him to the right place. His breathing catches in his throat on every inhale, shallow and shaky, he wants to scream. His breathing is all wrong, and he wants to scream at himself, berate himself for his carelessness.

His foot catches on a particularly high ledge.

His face meets the hard floor before he even knows whats going on, a violent crunch and scrape, and he's down. The taste of blood seeps into his mouth, and the throbbing in his head seems to have grown teeth and spines.

He doesn't move, the warm sensation of blood trickling across his own skin making every nerve tingle, and his breathing stutters even more than what it already had been. He lays very still, focusing on the sting in his forehead and the pain spreading through his nose. At least he's familiar with that feeling.

Dudley had broken his nose enough times to know what that feels like.

The sound of footsteps in front of him makes him groan, though he still doesn't move. His eyes fall closed, and the darkness seems to swallow him.

Fucking Pansy Parkinson.

* * *

><p>Heat is so precious. It keep a body alive from the inside, warms the skin and tells a person when they're ill. When they're weak. It radiates from the sun in the sky and crackles in fireplaces, controlled, almost beautiful. Harry, however, likes it best when all of the heat loses that control, that comfortable grip on temperature and becomes something so overwhelming that it consumes everything in a space, scolds flesh and brings irrational fear to the eyes of the people at it's mercy.<p>

Harry had laughed. He had stood at it's centre and he had laughed and laughed, his breathing had been a mess, and he loved it.

Loved it.

He wakes very suddenly, eyes snapping open and his hands fisting into scratchy sheets.

The air is cool against his skin, and the air smells strongly of cleaning solution. He doesn't want to move.

But he does, because he really has absolutely no idea where he is. He blinks a few times, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling before turning his head to look around. It takes him all of two seconds to figure out where he is, the clinical white sheets covering his body and the flimsy bluish curtains that have been pulled around him tell him he's managed to land himself in the hospital wing. Brilliant.

He turns to look in on the other side of his bed, only to be greeted with the most unfamiliar sight he has ever seen. There are two chairs sitting next to him, both occupied, and a little blue fire sitting in a jar on his bedside table with his glasses.

He snatches them up, pushing them onto his face and wincing slightly at the tenderness in his nose, before looking back at the two people beside him.

Hermione sits closest to him, legs tucked up beneath her and a large book opened in her lap. She mouths along as she reads from it, her frizzy hair tied back and away from her face. She looks tired, as though she's been sitting there for hours now. Had she?

Next to her, much to Harry's surprise, is an equally tired looking Draco. Harry's pretty sure he would be rather uncomfortable with the arrangement, considering how vocal he had been about Hermione in earlier years, and finds it hardly surprising that his hand is running subconsciously through his hair as he reads a significantly thinner book than Hermione's.

Harry stares at the pair of them for several moments, hesitant to disturb the silence that's pressing in around them.

Instead, he wonders to himself what on earth Draco is doing here, sitting on a hard wooden chair, reading, when he could very well be sitting down in the common room tattling over whatever it is he talks about. Harry doesn't really know what he talks about, considering he hasn't really talked around Harry for years now, with the exception of the last few weeks at least.

He clears his throat, watching as the pair of them both jump violently and look up from their books.

"Hi." Harry clears his throat again, trying to wash away the dryness still lingering there. They both close the books in their laps, watching him carefully as he sits himself up. "What time is it?"

Hermione looks down at her wrist, "About nine, you've been out for a while."

Harry scratches the back of his head as he shifts on the bed, noting that his headache seems to have miraculously dissipated in the space of the last few hours, before turning to look at a rather pale looking Draco, "Why are you here?" he asks calmly, keeping as much of the venom from his voice as he can manage.

"He found you," Hermione says bluntly, dropping her book onto the floor and stretching in her seat, "turns out you were quite a mess, actually. Get in another fight with a Hippogriff, Harry?"

"No," he snaps, huffing at her and crossing his arms across his chest, "I didn't get in a fight with anyone."

"Of course not."

"Don't start, Hermione."

"You don't give me much of a choice," she snaps back at him, a pink flush rising in her cheeks. "This doesn't exactly look all that harmless to me."

Harry actually laughs at this, because for the first time since he can remember, this injury is about as harmless as it gets. "I blacked out," he laughs, "happens when you have someone as annoying as Pansy pining after you."

"Explain all the blood then," she pushes.

"I'm pretty sure," he brings a hand to his face gently, "That when your face hits the ground hard enough, it's quite easy to break your nose. Now if you wouldn't mind," he throws back the sheets and swings his legs over the side of the bed, snatching up his wand and stuffing it into his belt loop. "I'm quite done with the prying, I have homework to get done."

With that, he stands, runs unsteady hands through his hair, and sweeps the blue curtains away before walking straight out through the open hospital wing door. He can hear Hermione calling after him, can hear an extra set of footsteps behind him, but he doesn't turn around. He really does have work to get done.

His mind feels clearer than it has all day, his footsteps sharper and more pronounced and his breathing so wonderfully balanced that it makes his hands shake at his sides.

In, and out.

The footsteps behind him speed up, until Draco manages to catch up to him, "Where's Hermione?" Harry questions quietly, keeping his steps long and sure.

"She went back to Gryffindor tower, she's livid by the way," Draco's tone is as conversational as ever, and it takes Harry by surprise. He looks over at the blonde through narrowed eyes, looking him over as they walk. He notes the disheveled state of his hair, the odd sparkle in his eyes and the dried blood still coating his fingertips. Draco seems to notice his eyes lingering, laughing softly as he speaks, "You made a right mess, you know? Blood everywhere. I never would've guessed it was only a broken nose when I saw you, but then again, you are full of surprises."

"Charming," Harry mutters, reaching up to run his fingers over his nose. It doesn't feel crooked, though he can't be sure.

"You look fine," Draco says.

Harry snorts, dropping his hand back to his side as they take the stairs. "Thanks."

The rest of the walk is silent, Harry fidgeting with his tie and Draco half running to keep up with him. It's odd, considering the Draco is at least two inches taller than Harry. He chooses to ignore it, in favour of getting back to the common room, to his bed. He expects the common room to be empty by this time, at least of anybody he knows.

But when he opens the door, the first thing that greets him is Pansy's face, muddy brown eyes and her motor mouth.

The crooked smile on his face doesn't even waver, and as he steps through the wall and into the room, he feels the beautiful rush of heat spread through his entire body.

She rushes towards him, oblivious to everything she's seeing, wrapping her arms around his neck and squealing about something. He doesn't notice, his hands coming up to the back of her neck of their own accord, and latching tightly onto her short hair.

He drags her away from him, feeling her arms loosen around his neck as she finally realises that something is obviously wrong. "Your hair is so pretty," Harry whispers, giving another harsh tug at the back of her head, "So, damn pretty."

He throws her down onto the ground with a flick of his wrists, hearing the crack of her knees against stone and the uncertain waver in her voice.

He shouldn't be doing this. He needs a plan, he needs to think it through, over and over until everything is perfect. But he can't help it. His skin prickles and burns beneath his robes. He won't kill her, not now. Just scare her.

He drops to his knees, places strong hands on her shoulders and leans down over her face, exhaling heavily as he watches fear sparkle in her eyes. He misses it so damn much. "They told me to ignore you," he whispers, "they told me, that you'd go away if I just let you drive me insane, but you didn't, you stupid girl." he brings a hand to her throat, running tentative fingers down it's centre as he speaks, "They told me, that if I told you to leave me alone, you'd go away. But again, you didn't. You just keep crawling back." he laughs lightly, "but there's something you really need to understand, Pansy Parkinson."

He let's his fingers rest at the base of her throat, lingering for a moment, before pressing down hard against her windpipe.

"People like me, we're not very nice people," her breathing stutters, "so when we say 'fuck off' we mean 'fuck off'. Do you understand that, princess?"

Her hands grapple at the fingers digging into her throat, mouth gaping wordlessly, as she nods.

He smiles.

"I'm on an O average in all of my classes, I don't care about what you have to say, and I definitely don't appreciate your filthy hands all over my body." He hisses, standing quickly from his place on the floor, looks down at her a moment longer, the fire in his veins making him shudder. He runs his foot up the side of her face, as the room seems to come back to itself, "Such pretty hair,"he whispers, and steps over Pansy's shuddering body in the direction of his rather attractive sounding bed.

Maybe she'll get the hint.

Maybe she'll come back again. He hopes so.

"Er, Harry? What was-"

"That, Draco, was me sending a very long overdue message. I'm quite certain I've sent you one or two over the years as well."

"Oh, right."

Hello, beautiful bed. Hello, beautiful boy.

In, and out.

* * *

><p><em>Poor Pansy hasn't seen anything yet. Harry's being far too kind. x<em>


	5. Chapter 5

**Fahrenheit - Chapter 5 **by HollyandHawthorn

DISCLAIMER: I am now the proud owner of some thrillingly red hair, and a bobble headed Harry potter figurine, and while I still dream of ownership of the enterprise, I have no such luck, nor will I ever.

_A/N: So here is the way that it goes, I've had this picture in my head for a while now, of Harry being a grumpy bastard in the rain, because he hates rain. This is just kind of what that turned into, we make some progress on many fronts, including what somebody referred to so kindly as "Project Pansy."_

_I would also like to makemention that in this chapter, I want to rip Pansy's hair out just as much as Harry does.  
><em>

_Best is Good, Better is Best.  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Psychopathy<strong> is a mental disorder characterised primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behaviour and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime. Though lacking empathy and emotional depth, they often manage to pass themselves off as normal people by feigning emotions and lying about their pasts.

* * *

><p>Harry trudges across the quidditch pitch looking like a green clad drowned rat, his hair sticking to his face and his lips an odd shade of blue. He glares down at the muddy ground with anguish, in an attempt to burn his frustrations into the ground like some great ugly tattoo.<p>

He's wet, and he's cold. Two things that he despises with his every fibre of being.

The sound of a whistle blast somewhere to his right makes him scowl, tightening his slippery grip on the Firebolt his godfather had given him as his turns to squint through the sheets of water hammering down on them.

He's pretty sure that he wants to wring the team captain's neck, and string him up from one of the goal hoops, just for making him step out into this horrible weather to train. It wasn't like they needed to, they didn't have a game for another month, and it was against Hufflepuff for fuck's sake.

He feels the gentle beating of wings in his palm, turning his burning gaze to the golden ball he had somehow managed to snatch from the air, despite the fact that he can't even see three feet in front of him. The whistle blasts again, and he groans inwardly, stomping off in the direction of the sound until the rest of the team comes into view.

He comes to a halt next to Blaise, whose uniform clings to his arms, rivers of water running off of his dark fingertips.

This is definitely the last place he wants to be right now, considering he has far more important things he could be dealing with, like the Charms homework sitting on his bed, or the blonde boy invading his daydreams for no fathomable reason whatsoever. He's certain that he's been letting his guard fall too low of late with Draco, even going so far as to argue over homework in the common room of an evening on the occasion, and it's making him uneasy on his feet.

He doesn't forget too quickly, especially when it comes to such things as Draco's somewhat dissolved reputation of being top dog in Slytherin house. Harry had ripped that post out of his grasp a long time ago, though he was sure that, should Draco have the opportunity to do so, he would take it from him just as viciously.

So why the hell was he being so weak?

Blaise elbows him sharply in the ribs, snapping his attention back to the fact that he's freezing his arse off and that he can't see a damn thing.

Pucey stares pointedly at him, and it's obvious that he's missed something that's supposed to be important, a question, perhaps some new tactic he's got to practice next training session. Not likely.

He glares back at the captain, raising an eyebrow in askance, daring the seventh year to chastise him.

As it turns out, Pucey is either brave - or stupid enough to take the silent challenge.

"Didn't you hear a word I said, Potter?" he screeches. "Are you really that ignorant?"

It's an odd feeling, Harry thinks, when your blood is boiling under your skin, even though your limbs have already gone numb.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Harry drops his broom down into the mud, grinding his teeth together, "Did you really expect me to listen to you give us a chirpy little pep talk, in the fucking rain, when you could've given me the same information in the damn change rooms, you twat?" He inhales deeply, rain dripping from the tip of his nose as he waits for Pucey to catch up.

When no reply comes, he nods simply, picks his broom up out of the mud with an elegant wrinkling of his nose, and walks away from the group in a direction he isn't quite sure of.

He's never been the most cooperative of team members, everybody in Slytherin house is well aware of that fact, but they're also aware that he's the best seeker the school has had in a long time. He's never lost a game for Slytherin, and he's quite certain that that fact gives him every right to grumble about training in the rain.

Because he fucking hates the rain.

Every time he steps into the Great Hall to glare at the ceiling of a morning, he prays that the sky is a disgusting shade of periwinkle as opposed to the roiling grey that surrounds him now. He doesn't even know why he's out here, there's water in his shoes and the pads of his fingers look like an old mans.

The water runs off of his chin as he grumbles under his breath, his robes flapping heavily around his ankles and the mud under his feet splattering with every step, covering the emerald coloured robes with ugly brown specks. It's all extremely disgusting. He can promise a very unfortunate wake up call for the team captain tomorrow morning, once Harry's bones have thawed and all the heat is swirling around his body again.

His fingers tighten around the captured snitch in his hand angrily. Why must there be half an hour longer of this damn training session?

In, and out.

It takes him two minutes of aimless walking to find the edge of the pitch, the great wooden skeleton of the stands rising high above him as he squints up at them, stripped of the house colours that usually adorn it's exterior on match days and looking particularly meek in the misery of a down pour.

There's nowhere dry for him to sit, and the change rooms had been locked behind him. Damn it.

Feeling particularly mutinous now, he walks right up to the edge of the stands, tossing his broom over the barrier before grabbing hold of the wooden edging and dragging himself up and over the high wall, a task that proves to be extremely tedious with the added weight of wearing his full quidditch uniform, and being soaked to the bone.

When he finally heaves himself over the wall, he falls with a dull thud onto the wooden slats of the front row, scrubs numb fingers through wet hair and picks himself up grumpily, snatching his broom from it's spot on the benches next to him and stepping up several levels before sitting heavily in the centre of the stand.

He doesn't move from that spot for the next twenty five minutes of training, broom handle wedged between his elbows and his thighs as he glares silent daggers at the open air, hoping that Pucey can feel the jab of his stare through the dull hum of fucking freezing rain.

What a useless idea, training in a downpour, you can't see a fucking thing.

While he glares and grows increasingly numb, Harry lets his mind wander.

There have been a lot of things clogging up his thought processes of late, and he's beginning to get aggravated by the lack of attention being given to the more important things, like his damn breathing. Is it really too much to ask? To have a clear enough mind to be able to focus on things that define the line between living somewhat peacefully, and tearing everything down to the ground, setting it alight and laughing hysterically at the screams emanating from the ruin.

That line, it's so fragile, thin like paper and the fine layers of the skin on the backs of his hand. Too much pressure, and it tears, and then everything is destroyed.

Skin is so beautiful when it's whole, unscathed and free of the criss crossed scars that tell the tale of throwing cats in lakes and singeing himself in flames bursting from the air around him.

He blames Draco.

Draco will be the reason that he falls apart, loses control. He doesn't know why he knows this fact, he just does.

Draco, with his pale skin and glittering eyes that were once so terrified to look into his own for fear of the consequence. Harry still isn't certain what it is that is holding him back, especially when the stakes are so high in a place with so many people, he can't put a finger on what it is that stops him from throwing the blonde boy down on the ground, pressing a heel to his throat and issuing the same warning he has done so many times over the last three years.

He's invading Harry's dreams too, now, prizing his way into his subconscious and making a mess of the labyrinth of carefully organised shelves that Harry has hidden away in his mind. He makes his breathing stutter and hitch in his sleep, makes his fingers curl into the white sheets covering his body and a cold sweat break across his brow.

Harry can never remember the dreams, only the closeness of grey eyes to his own, lust blown pupils and the tiny fleck of blue hidden away in the sea of grey in his right eye.

He's woken to a hammering headache a painful hard on every morning for the past three weeks, ever since the removal of the Princess problem. Every morning he drags himself into the bathroom, seeking release to the image of those damn eyes. He presses his head back against cold stone and whines quietly in the emptiness, drags himself out of the bath and spends far longer than usual trying to balance himself.

Every morning, Draco walks in minutes later looking so sleepily happy that Harry wants to punch him in the mouth until he bleeds.

In, and out.

He snaps back to reality when his body gives a particularly violent shudder, his teeth chattering and his eyes stinging against the cold. He scowls and the grey surrounding him, wiping pointlessly at the water droplets on his glasses as he attempts to read the time.

His fingers toy with the defeated snitch experimentally, in an attempt to regain some kind of feeling in his fingers with no such luck. He sighs, picks himself up from the waterlogged bench seat with his broom back in hand, climbing down the bleachers and jumping clumsily back over the barrier with a particularly unpleasant splat.

He prays the bastard has unlocked the change rooms as he makes his way around the edge of the pitch, fat raindrops assaulting his face as he goes, making him growl in exasperation, attempting stupidly to swat the droplets away.

The sight of the open change room door makes Harry sigh in both relief and frustration, the call of a hot shower and a dry towel however, are enough to make him push down his unhappiness in favour of not getting himself into an argument. He just wants a damn shower. Before his fingers fall off.

The cement floor is covered in muddy tracks, brooms leaning next to the door drip copious volumes of water onto the ground, as do the wet, dirty robes slung over hooks on the walls. His team mates don't even look up as he walks in, an action they had learned to repress in his second year.

The little room is filled with steam, though the air is just as cold as it is outside, making Harry shiver even more violently.

He drops his broom alongside the others, before moving off to stand next to a disgruntled looking Blaise, who turns annoyed black eyes on him and gives Harry the worst news that he's heard all day.

"Goyle used all the hot water," he rolls his eyes, "Greedy bastard."

"What?"

"Don't make me say it again, it's too depressing."

Harry cracks his knuckles. Breathe.

It's not like Crabbe and Goyle don't already have a hefty lists of unfavourable traits, Harry's got a nice neat one written up in his head, for every time one of them stole his pudding, or sat on his bed and crumpled the sheets, or used his fucking shampoo. They'd always deny the last one, of course. But Harry could smell it on the idiots.

He clinches his jaw, water still running down his face from his hair, but suddenly the cold doesn't matter. Some bastard used all the hot water. He doesn't get far though, maybe one or two steps in the direction of the showers before a strong hand grabs hold of his wrist and he twists around, shooting a venomous glare at Blaise.

"Leave it, Harry. Not here." Blaise's voice is resigned, and his grip on Harry remains tight as they stare at each other, Harry's eyes a blazing, fiery green, Blaise's a dead, cold black. Harry doesn't even know why he listens to Blaise, maybe it's the firm logic he seems portray through his voice, or the lack of annoying traits that everyone else around him seems to have an abundance of.

"Fine." he mutters, ripping his wrist away from Blaise, "might as well walk back to the castle then, not like I can get any bloody colder."

He doesn't bother with removing his robes, shoving the snitch he's still holding into his pocket before heading resignedly towards the door leading to the castle.

"I'll come," Blaise calls, following after him in his Quidditch robes as well. They step back out into the rain with a mutual groan, beginning the long, muddy walk back up towards the warmth of the castle.

They walk in near silence for the first minute or two, the sound of the rain beating down against them and the slipping of their feet on the slick ground blocking out the great majority of Harry's mutinous muttering above exactly how passionate his hate for rain is.

Because he hates it. Hates rain, and water and the Black Lake and feeling as though somebody is dropping a bucket of iced water over his head over and over and over again.

At least once he gets back he doesn't have to put up with Pansy pining after him. He isn't certain however, as to whether his warning a few weeks ago had chased her off, or simply put her back into one of her temporary 'Harry's only having a bad day, he still loves me' phases, where she chooses instead to admire from a distance.

A small part of him wants her to come crawling back. To go back to running her hands all over him, wearing his patience thin until his composure falls apart. God, he loves that feeling.

He loves when his hands start to shake and his skin heats, his head tilts ever so slightly back and his breathing becomes rough, uneven, like a monster being awoken in his chest, clawing it's way up his throat and thrashing about inside him. It a manipulative beast, tempting him with violence, the tiny voice behind his eyes, caressing his mind until the answer becomes so clear he doesn't know why it never occurred to him before.

Like starting a fire, or wrapping your fingers into short black hair and ripping it away by the roots.

He gives a violent sneeze, and goes back to his grumbling about this fucking rain.

"Who's brilliant idea was it to train in the fucking rain anyway," he mutters, "Lucky I didn't take a bludger to the head, considering how hopeless those lumps for beaters are. Use all my hot water, stupid beaters."

"Stop whining, Potter," Blaise elbows him sharply in the ribs, "You're starting to sound like Theo."

"I'm not whining," he snaps, elbowing Blaise back, "I'm scheming how best to traumatise Crabbe and Goyle in their sleep."

"Sure you are."

Harry scowls, gives Blaise a particularly hard shove, and falls on his arse in the mud.

* * *

><p>Draco isn't really sure what he's supposed to do when he's been put in a situation like this.<p>

Pansy's face is so close to his now that he can the odd yellow flecks amongst the mud of her irises, smell the sickening sweetness of her perfume and feel her sharp fingernails sinking into his thighs.

He's stunned into submission, backed into the arm of one of the leather lounges in the common room with a rather predatory girl pressing down on him like he should be wanting this. It's strange that he should think of his father at a time like this, thrusting pure blooded girls onto him whenever opportunity permitted, and writing long winded letters about how important it is that he find himself a suitor.

Draco's pretty sure that his idea of a 'suitor' strays impossibly far from his father's though, and definitely doesn't have any of the qualities of one Pansy Parkinson.

"You look flustered, Draco. Is something wrong?" She bats her eyelashes at him, and the taste of bile coats his throat.

He wants to tell her that, yes, in fact, something is very wrong. Everything is wrong, because her dark hair is neat and sleek, her eyelashes long and her hands small and weak. He wants to tell her to get off him, to go back to pining after Harry like she does so often, but at the same time, he doesn't want her pining after him.

He stays silent too long, and before he even knows what's going on, a pair of glossy lips are being pressed hard against his own.

Oh, God.

His brain starts screaming at him immediately _Get it off get it off! This is disgusting! Get it off!_

His hands scrabble weakly at her back, too dazed and confused to get a grip on her sweater. Panic swells in his stomach, her hair falling into his eyes as she runs her hands further up his thighs, pressing down onto him as her tongue flicks across his lower lip.

He wants to vomit.

He barely hears the common room door slam open over the hot exhale of breath that spreads across his face, Pansy's tongue still lapping at his lips and his body frozen beneath her, hands held suspended in the air and back pressed painfully into the chairs arm.

And then she's gone. The cold air hits him hard and his eyes blink away the sting of her hair, searching blearily for where the girl has gone to. What greets him is even more shocking than having Pansy attacking your face.

Harry's grip in her hair is tight and unyielding, dragging her across the stone floor with eyes shining such a fiery green that all the blood in Draco's body seems to drain to the base of his spine. He watches, eyes wide, as Harry slams her back hard into the wall, hand still tight in her hair as he brings his face in close to her, muttering under his breathe so that Draco can't hear.

The sight is actually quite thrilling, though he isn't sure whether it's having Pansy dragged off of him by an obviously fuming Harry Potter or the fact that Harry actually gave a damn that Pansy seemed to have shifted off to a new target.

It's in that moment that Draco finally takes notice of the fact that Harry, mouth still pressed to Pansy's ear, is absolutely soaking wet, his wild hair sticking to his face and his emerald robes dripping in earnest onto the floor. He shouldn't be thinking about it, Harry would kill him if he knew Draco was looking at him like that right now, would drop Pansy onto the ground and march right over here, wrap icy fingers around his neck and kill him.

So why on Earth did it make him feel so painfully turned on?

Suddenly, Blaise clears his throat next to him,and Draco feels his face heat, shifting in his seat though never taking his eyes away from the Potter-Parkinson face off in front of him.

"Think he's pissed?" Blaise asks in his low voice.

"Just a bit," Draco mumbles, swallowing hard as Harry's eyes slide suddenly to his, lock for barely a moment, that fire still burning brightly inside him, before turning back to the side of Pansy's head. "She just -"

"- Attacked you? Yeah, I figured. She's a bit like that, I think Harry's just a little too rough to really get close to."

"You seem to do an alright job," Draco points out.

Blaise snorts loudly, patting Draco hard on the shoulder, "That's because I'm not stupid enough to try and molest him."

Draco's lips twitch at that, watching as Harry finally drops Pansy onto the ground, and admires the sizeable chunk of hair in his hand. He's probably the most unpredictable, violent people in this school, but there's something about him that Draco just can't get his head around. There's something hidden behind that dark expression and his obsessive need to calm himself over and over again.

He noticed that particular trait in his second year, when Harry had him pinned against that very same wall, eyes closed, counting silently to himself as his breathing slowed. It's probably one of the scariest things Draco had ever seen.

As Pansy scrambles up off of the ground, hand clutched to the back of her head, Harry turns back to him, hair still in hand and a very annoyed expression on his face.

"Oh dear, Draco, you have absolutely no fucking taste," Harry wrinkles his nose as he scowls after a retreating Pansy. "Surely you can do better than filth like her?"

Draco doesn't reply, eyes wide as Harry walks over to him slowly, deposits the clump of hair into his lap and brings a finger to Draco's lips, swiping slowly across them before bringing his hand up to his face, inspecting the feral cherry flavoured gloss Draco could still taste in his mouth.

Harry's eyes seem to dull slightly, losing the brilliant shimmer Draco loves. He turns away smearing the gloss onto hiswet robes and striding in the direction of the dormitory. "That bath is calling!" he yells enthusiastically, eliciting another snort from Blaise, following closely behind him.

Draco isn't going to sleep tonight.

* * *

><p>In, and out.<p>

* * *

><p><em>I love Blaise, he makes me happy. In case you can't tell.<em>


End file.
